Harry Potter Films in Total Have Made More Than All of Laos Last Year

We've reported how everyone in the media is talking about the fascination "muggles" have with Harry Potter now that the last movie installment in the series hit theaters today. To commemorate the end of the Harry Potter movies, Entrepreneur magazine compiled a list of statistics about J.K. Rowling's franchise. The one that jumped out the most to us was the amount the eight-part film series has generated at the box office over the past decade: a whopping $6.37 billion.

To put that figure into perspective, the film series' overall gross is slightly greater than the GPD of Laos in 2010, pegged at $6.34 billion by the CIA. GDPs of Haiti, Nicaragua, and Mongolia are also in the ballpark of the films' total gross since the first one came out in 2001. And this doesn't include book sales or any other revenue streams. Our scientific conclusion: Rowling is a very, very rich woman.

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.